A wry smile came across Grouard’s face. “You think I figured to let that son of a bitch burn me twice, Lieutenant? Hell no, I didn’t believe a word of his song. But he didn’t trust me neither. Fact was, he come to my room that night—checking to see if I’d gone and got the sneak on him after dark.”
Donegan squinted one eye in appraising the half-breed. “Listen, you goddamned half-blood—I know you good enough to know you wasn’t about to eat supper and lay your head down in no bed if there was a chance Crawford was about to get the jump on you through the night. So what’d you do?”
Smiling, Grouard replied, “To make sure of him not running off on me again—I sat tight and finished my supper before I went down the street to find me a good man there in town I could trust to carry a note to Captain Egan—”
“Teddy Egan?” Donegan asked.
Grouard nodded. “The same what led your charge on that village in the Powder River last winter. Told Egan that I needed one of his men to get the dispatches on through, and then had that fella ride off with ’em on a fresh horse down to Egan’s camp at Red Canyon—a good forty miles off. Sent Crook’s note on with the man too. Then I wrote me a letter to Crook, telling him what all I’d done before I went off to find me a empty bed. After Crawford come and shook me up, I didn’t wake up for the next three days.”
“Three days?” Wessels exclaimed. “What became of Crawford?”
With a shrug Grouard said, “I hear he got up and pulled out at nine the next morning. Seeing how I slept in, he likely figured he had the jump on me. Got to Red Canyon midafternoon, where Egan broke the bad news to him. Told Crawford he just as well ought to spend the night because he wasn’t about to overtake those couriers by that time.”
“That was the fifteenth—which means he didn’t reach Laramie ahead of Egan’s courier,” Bourke declared.
“So how was it that Davenport’s dispatch got on the wire before Crook’s?” Schuyler asked.
“Crawford got to the key shack at Hat Creek about eight o’clock the night of the fifteenth,” Burt replied, “but the line was down.”
“Line was still down when I went through there,” Frank disclosed.
Bourke shook his head, beginning to ask, “If the line was down—”
Burt interrupted, saying, “When Crawford came through there, the operator told him that the wire should be back up by the next morning. Now, I’ve heard enough of the story to know that Captain Jack had him a second copy of Davenport’s story that he left right there with the key operator, with instructions to put the story on the line as soon as there was current.”
“Where the devil’d he get that second copy?” Donegan asked.
The table fell silent. Slowly, man by man, Grouard felt all the eyes turn on him, expecting an answer. “He got it from me,” he groaned.
“From you?” Bourke roared.
“I was so damned angry with him there in Custer City that I handed him that copy of Davenport’s story that son of a bitch Davenport give me back at the Belle Fourche and told him I wasn’t carrying it no more.”
“So when the line was repaired, that’s how Davenport’s dispatch got on the wire before Egan’s courier could reach here,” Wessels said. “And in the meantime, Crawford himself kept on pushing for Laramie. The next key shack was up at Sage Creek, just forty-eight miles beyond Hat Creek, and that’s where Crawford must’ve found out the line was up and working by that time. The operator there told him Davenport’s story was already on the wire ahead of all the others.”
Donegan sat his mug down with a clunk, wagging his head. “Damn the bloody hell of it—so that’s how Davenport’s story got out ahead of Crook’s dispatches to Sheridan.”
“But only part of Davenport’s story,” said Andy Burt.
“What do you mean, only part of it?” Donegan asked as Grouard rocked forward on his elbows.
“When the Hat Creek operator paused in the middle of Davenport’s story for a moment, the operator at Laramie broke in and took over possession of the wire with Crook’s official dispatches,” Burt explained. “Still, with the jump Crawford had there at Hat Creek key station, Davenport’s story got wired east a good five hours ahead of all the rest of those other newspapermen.”
Bourke asked, “What’d Crawford get for his trouble?”
“It sure wasn’t that five hunnert Davenport promised him,” Grouard grumped.
Donegan grumped over his whiskey, “Davenport’s the sort so tight he squeaks when he walks. I’ll wager he gave Captain Jack no more’n a shinplaster or two.”
Wessels explained, “I heard he got only two hundred dollars since he wasn’t the first to Laramie and only part of the story got out before Crook’s report.”
“Where’s Crawford now?” Schuyler asked.
“He laid over here a day,” Burt answered. “Then he doubled back for the Hills.”
“Let’s drink to Frank Grouard!” Bourke cheered, raising his mug of beer.
The half-breed watched a sudden bright twinkle gleam in the lieutenant’s eyes as the officer tapped Donegan on the shoulder and pointed out the window.
“Who’s that?” Seamus asked, squinting through the smoke-smudged windowpanes.
“That?” Andy Burt replied. “That happens to be Lieutenant Capron’s wife, Seamus. The woman who tonight is helping my Elizabeth deliver your child.”
“Ch-child?”
Donegan and the rest suddenly whirled about on their seats in that next instant as Nettie Capron swirled into the room, a blast of autumn cold clinging to her long dress, a shawl clutched tightly about her shoulders. Burt stood immediately, signaling the woman through that smoky atmosphere. The rest of the men stood gallantly as she came to a stop at the table.
“Mr. Donegan?” Nettie Capron said softly.
“Y-yes?” he replied, his face sagging a bit as his knees began to turn to water.
“The captain’s … Elizabeth Burt sent me to fetch you.”
“And?” Andy Burt asked, his voice rising. “Is Seamus a father?”
“No, not yet—but soon,” she answered, then turned to the Irishman once more. “Could you come … now? Your wife is … she’s having a struggle of it. And, sh-she’s asking for you.”
Chapter 1
7 October 1876
If he lived forever, Seamus Donegan was dead certain he would never forget this night.
At first the women fluttering around Samantha had tried to convince him in hushed tones that he should stay no more than a few moments with his wife. Reassure her, console her—then go back to the saloon—just as a man was supposed to do when a woman’s time came.
“S-stay with me,” Sam begged in a harsh whisper as he came to the side of that tiny bed where she lay, her back propped up, the thin grayed sheet draped over her knees like sister mountain peaks covered with dirty snow. She held one hand out for him to grasp as he went to his knee beside the bed.
Almost immediately he watched the rise of another contraction show on her face, and suddenly the others squeezed forward once again: two on the far side of the bed, one at Donegan’s shoulder. All of them muttering instructions to Sam, reminders about breathing, about not pushing.
“Where’s the goddamned surgeon?” he looked up to ask them as Sam fell back against those tiny pillows and folded-up comforter they had braced behind her.
Elizabeth Burt was the one to answer. “We’ll call him if we need him, Mr. Donegan.”
He rose shakily from his knee. It hurt like hell down on that hardwood floor. As quickly he felt a flush of shame for thinking of that when Sam’s hurt must be so much the worse. He squeezed her slick hand between his two rough, callused paws and said as quietly, as politely, as he could, “Looks to me we n-need him.”